Adam Ondra

Adam Ondra (Czech pronunciation: [ˈadam ˈondra]; born February 5, 1993) is a Czech professional rock climber, specializing in lead climbing, bouldering, and competition climbing. In 2013, Rock & Ice described Ondra as a prodigy and the leading climber of his generation. Ondra is the only male athlete to have won World Championship titles in both disciplines in the same year (2014) and is one of the two male athletes (alongside Sorato Anraku in 2023) to have won the World Cup series in both disciplines (lead climbing in 2009, 2015, and 2019 and bouldering in 2010). At age 13, Ondra redpointed his first graded 9a (5.14d) sport route. Rock & Ice noted that by 2011, he was "onsighting 5.14c's by the handful", and by 2013, had "more or less repeated every hard route in the world—easily". By end 2018, Ondra had climbed 1,550 sport routes between grades 8a (5.13b) and 9c (5.15d), of which one was a 9c (5.15d), three were 9b+ (5.15c), and three were onsights of 9a (5.14d). Ondra is the first climber to redpoint a route with a proposed grade of 9c (5.15d) (Silence, 2017), the first climber to redpoint a 9b+ (5.15c) route (Change, 2012), the first-ever to flash a 9a+ (5.15a) route (Supercrackinette, 2018), and the second ever to onsight a 9a (5.14d) route (Cabane au Canada, 2013). Although primarily known for sport climbing, Ondra has repeated or established difficult big wall climbs, traditional climbs, and boulder problems. Because of his achievements, Ondra is often referred to as the world's strongest climber.